Sleepovers at Grandparents

[PrincessLeila8]

Hello all,
My wife wants to get our four year old daughter to do sleepovers at her grandparents. I'm ok with the principle of it, more because it give my wife a chance to sleep throughout the night, but I feel there should be some 'rules' surrounding any sleepover.... even if only at grandparents. Raising the topic is sensitive for her as I think it implies I dont trust her family (which I do), but I feel there should still be some mutual framework around it. AIBU or should I just shut up and go along with the flow.

My ideas on rules we would need for sleepover nights:

• An understanding that strictly no visitors on those nights. It’s only immediate family whom we know there.
• Grandparents need to be fully contactable / phones / at all times.
• Not sleeping in uncles, granddads bed etc.
• If grandparents are around - strictly no smoking/fumes in house
• No uncontrolled internet

Am I the only one trying to put down rules for something like this (my wife's view)? or does everyone just go with the flow?

Also, are there any angles or rules you think I may have missed?

Thanks

If you don’t trust them, book your wife a night in a hotel. She’ll have a good night sleep, you can do the night shift and you won’t have to worry about a horde of peedos invading the grandparents house 🙄

Those are perfectly sensible expectations.

I’d be more concerned that you have to even have this conversation. Surely, no responsible grandparent would have a 4 year old over for a sleepover, invite all their friends for the same night, smoke in the house and let the 4 told sleep with their uncle?! 😳

If their boundaries are so poor that you have to point that out, then no, my child would not be having sleepovers there.

My 2 dc have never had a sleepover with any of their grandparents because basic boundaries like these wouldn’t be respected and they wouldn’t be safe. That’s why we don’t permit it.

If your wife needs a break, send her off on a weekend away or take your dd away for a few days to give her time to rest and re-charge. My Dh takes the kids away solo several times a year and I go on holiday myself solo every year to have some downtime.

@BeenChangedForGood I see your point and your MIL is an idiot and as such I wouldn't be happy leaving her with a small child.

My vote post of the day! Thank you x

Better for OP to take himself and the child to the hotel, so that his wife can sleep in her own bed. (Or is just me that never sleeps properly in strange places?)

We never had these issues when mine were small (than again my daughter was the last to sleep over, in 2019)

I loved staying with my grandparents! All smoked, all cooked fried food, slept with my Nan in her bed, Nan gave us beer to drink and taught us how to play cards, bowls of sweets all around the house so you could help yourself. Loved it when their neighbours popped round to say hello.

These people have raised children, OP. Chill out, she's going to be with people who love her and do not wish her to come to any harm.

Luckily my daughters and son in laws don’t have to give me rules,when i have the grandkids for sleepovers.Because im not fucking stupid.

My in laws have our 1 year old for sleepovers as she is a nightmare sleeper and we have no rules. Anything goes and we trust them. And we are grateful. You are overthinking it. I also have to question why your 4 year old would be on the internet.

Surely she gets to sleep through the night 50% of the time, as you do your share of getting up in the night?

Someone else getting up doesn't mean that you can have unbroken sleep.

I'd always be woken up if my child cried out or came into our bedroom.

I’m a grandma and I’ve had my DGC many times. No rules were set as my family completely trust me with their DC.

This is such a strange list. Perhaps I'm just lucky, but my DD regularly sleeps at her grandparents' houses and they naturally wouldn't do most of this - they have a travel cot in a spare room, they don't smoke around her anyway etc.

The fact that you've laid it all out like this makes me wonder - is there a history with them?

Why can’t your wife have a full night’s sleep? Do you not get up?

To be honest, it sounds like you don’t trust the grandparents. My DDs sleep over at PIL’s relatively often. They don’t smoke so that’s a non-issue, but I don’t feel the need to lay down a rule like “no unsupervised internet access” because they would never allow my 6 & 3 yr old unsupervised internet access anyway (or any internet access really, beyond some Netflix on the tv. Certainly no “handheld” internet). I don’t feel like I need to set specific rules because I trust them to make reasonable decisions for my DDs’ safety and wellbeing while looking after them. If I didn’t, they wouldn’t be looking after them in the first place.

If the grandparents are smokers, we wouldn’t even be visiting their house!

Kids shouldn’t be bed sharing in my opinion as we’ve never done that, so that rule seems very reasonable to me.

I’m a grandparent and we’ve only had older DGS on a sleepover without the parents as we live abroad so our situation is quite different.

@thebabessavedme She has never spent any time alone with my child. She’s a kind MIL and a lovely Gran to him but is just very naive to things.

Yes but the OP wasn’t phrased as “to allow us both a full night’s sleep”, only OP’s wife. So it doesn’t sound like OP is struggling with sleep. That’s why people have mentioned it. If it had said “so we can both have a full night’s sleep” no one would have queried it.

My own DM parented me just like how I would expect anyone to take care of my Dc’s. My dh has full faith in her because he has seen how she cares for them. She can’t stand smoke so would be the first to not allow it in her home, she always asks me of dh if she is unsure, if she takes the kids out she will let me know when she’s there or she will send pics and update. She does a bit more than me tbh, cooks from scratch for them, will plan activities etc.
So we have full faith. Dh and I also don’t do equal here, his side is less hands on and we don’t send the kids there without us. They’re not bad, but we wouldn’t feel comfortable. So just because they stay over at my Dm doesn’t mean we do it fair and equal to please adults- we do what’s best for the kids.

My children are 3 and 4 and stay over at their grandparents sometimes. I have never given them rules because they raised my partner and his brother so I’m pretty sure they can manage to look after my 2 for a night every now and then. The only requests that I make are not to fill them full of chocolate and to maybe say no to them once in a while. I’m perfectly aware that both of these requests are fully ignored.

Is everyone commenting about the OP not taking a share of night wakes honestly saying that if their child wakes and the other parent gets up instead of them that they get a solid sleep? My DH does his fair share of night wakes and it makes no difference - im still wide awake because I know DC isn’t settled.

No,you either trust them or you don't.

Did originally say YANBU because all the things you listed are things which should mostly be happening anyway and not out of the ordinary.

But if the only reason for the sleepovers is to give your wife a break you should be able to do that yourself.

I think you should just look after your own children. Skip sleepovers if they make you so
anxious. Present that list to grandparents and I fear your relationship will never recover.
Do you have a history of abuse in either family?

To an extent I agree but you can’t present it as a list of rules, it’s just rude when they’re doing such a big favour. I do ask my parents not to let my kids on YouTube when they go to their house but it’s more of a ‘can you keep them away from YouTube it sends them crazy, you don’t want that!’ kinda thing. For everything else I trust my parents completely so I just wouldn’t even think to ask.

The rule are fine but wtf are you on about "giving your wife a good night's sleep"

Why can't you help with that?

ETA: PS. What your wife is actually saying is thst she's exhausted and you're bugger all help.